Airport Musings....

So I'm at BWI awaiting my flight. No posh club here to hang out in, I'm chilling on the Southwest Concourse next to a gentleman who is jealously surrounding his Washington Post with his arms, as if I were tying to read surreptitiously. Dude, I have a computer....I can read online.....

Long-time readers know I am wont to post from airports. I used to travel a good bit in my last job, and it afforded me a good bit of time in the Admiral's Club, a perch from which I could pass along my thoughts gathered during my standard two hours of dead time before boarding.

I'm here not quite 2 hours prior, but there is plenty to talk about. So here goes.

Security: Thought things would be ridiculous after the Nigerian adherent of peaceful religion attempted to blow himself and 200 others up. But it was the same old, same old. Which brings me to my second point.

The traveling idiots: We've been at this airport security stuff hammer and tong for eight plus years now. I am astounded by the number of people who continue to have some difficulty getting with the program. Shoes in the box. Coats off. Cell phone, watch, jewelery in the box. Computer out of the case. Bagged liquids. I manage to get stuck behind the traveling idiot with startling frequency.

Airport wheelchairs: This is the biggest traveling scam there is. If you emptied this airport out, perhaps you'd find oh, 20,000 people. If you compared the frequency of the wheelchair bound in a community of 20,000 with the number who claim this conveyance in an airport, you'd find a statistically significant increase in "free riders", that is, folks who generally don't use the wheelchair but then choose to in airports. Front of the line on security, get onboard early, etc. I know, I know--just be happy I'm not in a wheelchair. I'm just sayin'. Additionally, there should be wheelchair security entrances--ways to enter the general terminal for the wheelchair bound and their traveling companions only. Same with SUV strollers....

Fancy men's stores in airports: Jos A Bank, Brooks Bros.....great decisions to place stores in airports. Dudes are ALWAYS forgetting things. Like ties.

Cinnabon: Why is there no Cinnabon here? Why must I be denied the glories of the 1200 calorie gut bomb, the nation-feeding sweetmeat, the insulin atomic blast? Why dear Lord, why?